I asked a question in the thread of
https://www.researchgate.net/post/An_old_question_that_is_still_fresh_Is_gravity_a_Newtonian_force_or_Einstein_space-time_curvature/448
I'd like to repost it here:
Stage 1:
Imagine a pair of proton and electron, i.e. a hydrogen atom travels in space. The electron is orbiting classically (gyroscope) or quantumly (combination of random gyroscopes) around the proton. Then a beam of light strikes the pair, and one photon is absorbed.
Say the photon is from a source traveling the same speed and direction as the hydrogen atom (resting frame), then it is easy that we can imagine that the energy is absorbed by the electron and makes the electron orbiting radius larger and rotation speed slower, i.e. with a bigger internal angular momentum but no speeding up as a pair because we "all believe" that photon has no mass. After a while, the electron will relax back to its ground state by emitting a series of lower-energy photons or one photon with the same energy. The angle does matter because the emitted photon seems to carry momentum and leave a push to the hydrogen in the opposite direction of the emission. This is the way I think will satisfy the observation of the solar sail problem when the material needs to be reflective and seems all photon momentum is used to create the solar pressure from the equation I pulled out from readings. Let's assume this emitted photon now strangely carries momentum although I don't see what is the difference between it and the absorbed parent.
Now my questions are,
- what is the mass of the hydrogen atom when it absorbs the photon and has not speeded up? Note the electron of the atom has a slower rotation speed, larger radius, and bigger angular momentum.
- what is the mass of the hydrogen atom when it has emitted the absorbed photon and speeded up?
- is the total energy conserved in this case?
- is the total mass conserved in this case?
- is the total momentum conserved in this case?
- is the total angular momentum conserved in this case?
Stage 2:
Now there is a pair of electron and proton moving away from us say at half the speed of light. This situation naturally occurs in the universe on the stars moving away from us or we can speed up ourselves and observe the atom stay still on Earth. And a beam of light hit it from behind and a photon gets absorbed. At a short moment, the hydrogen atom emits a photon to us and accelerates. Now repeat the above questions and adding one at the last, namely,
- What is the mass of hydrogen atom at the beginning?
- What is the mass of the atom after absorbing the photon?
- what is the mass of the atom after emission?
- Is mass conserved
- is energy conserved
- is momentum conserved
- is angular momentum conserved
- are the two photons the same as the two when still?
Because mathematically gravity has some similarity, the question can be pushing the solar system.
Stage 3:
The same as stage 2 but now move towards us.
Let us assume the inertia is purely proportional to the angular momentum inside the structures of a hydrogen atom. Say the electron running around the proton, the inner structures of the electron and proton that carry angular momenta. These momenta resist changes of state like it requires energy to flip a gyroscope at outer space where gravity and centrifugal forces are balanced.
With this assumption of inertia and angular momentum correlation, we can analyze the mass conservation over acceleration under this assumption. If we push the hydrogen atom with force, the angular momentum of the electron rotation should maintains because there is no orbital change. The energy applied on the electron and proton eventually passes to the translational kinetic energy and at the same time speeds up the angular momentum of the proton and electron at the degree of freedom in rotation. Thus the mass of electron and proton increase. After the force is removed, the rotation inside the electron and proton should relax back to original state by emitting the angular momenta into space. These emissions have no direction so it does not change the kinetic energy. Thus at the new inertia reference frame with different speed, mass is conserved. The temporary mass increase only happens at the acceleration stage.
Now if the hydrogen atom absorbs a photon, the angular momentum of both electron and proton does not change, the angular momentum is mainly at the rotation of electron around proton at a larger radius and smaller angular momentum, and a small portion is assigned as push the same as the last case. The mass of the hydrogen atom at the excited states increases overall so the angular momentum inside the electron and proton increases bigger than loss in rotation. After a while the electron relaxes back to the ground state by emitting the energy as a photon which is no directional again. Thus the hydrogen moves at slightly different speed but mass is conserved. Now the problem is the photon energy absorbed distributes both at the emitted photon and the push of the electron and proton which also emits energy. Thus the energy of the emitted photon must have less energy than the absorbed photon and red shifted its wavelength. I.e. scattering cause energy because it pushes the atom as the solar sail effect. Note I have switched from photon absorption does not push to absorption also pushes.
Now for Newton’s apple problem. The free fall is the same as a satellite orbiting the earth at an elliptical orbital where there is no change in angular momentum and energy of the whole earth and apple system. Thus the whole system maintains the same energy and angular momentum while the interchange of energy, mass, and angular momentum is purely between the earth and the apple. Assuming an extreme case that the earth is a blackhole and the apple does not carry any angular momentum both impossible, the apple will fall into the blackhole and join the mass together. This is a paradox because if apple falls closer the mass of both the earth and apple should increase due to acceleration while the total energy and mass should conserved and thus the potential energy becomes a true thing carries mass which is hard to imagine.
For a push from the behind, say a light, the wave gets red shifted and the push adds less energy than when the atom is still. When push from the head, the wave gets blue shifted and the slow down energy is larger than if still compared to the rest frame when the photon is emitted. Thus, non push from a rest frame can accelerate the atom to speed of light when no energy is able to pass to the atom.
My question is can two atom travel the same speed push each other with photon? If there is a rest medium to a hidden reference either local or universal, no one travels faster than speed of light vs that reference frame. If not, can the speed of the pushed atom faster than light compare the rest frame? Will the time goes back for that atom?
My guess is no. When a jet plane pass the speed of sound, nothing special happens to it and sound inside the plane or time tracked by sound bit all normal. Just the sound from behind cannot get to it.
If scattering requires energy as rationale in my previous reply, light across millions of light years will drop their energy significantly due to the scattering of hydrogen atoms in space. There are a few consequences of this assumption:
- We don't need to assume the universe is expanding with our current data. We could have a stable universe.
- Light beyond our observable universe can still reach us with a very long wavelength that is beyond our observation. And they filled our space with extreme density which could be the candidate for dark energy or dark matter or ether.
My guess light has half energy in mass and half in kinetic energy.
For a matter to evaporate into light, half energy is needed to accelerate the rest half to the speed of light, say splitting into half each has a quarter energy in kinetic and the rest half remains photon mass. Matter near black hole need give up half mass in order to join the black hole which has speed of light at event horizon.
This is consistent with many physicists in the history who believe mass is confined light so light is moving mass.
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